Let me start this letter with a position statement. I strongly believe that there is no such thing as torture when dealing with terrorist Islamofascists.

On the other side of this debate, Diane Feinstein, the fifth richest senator, used the floor of the Senate to disparage the efforts of the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep this country from further catastrophic damage. I don’t know her reason for such an attack, but some have suggested it is a response to the CIA spying on her committee. 

I am also amazed that the Democrats’ torture report apparently ignores the written opinion of the U.S. Justice Department and attorney general that 10 of 12 techniques used were legal.

Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the interrogation program, has appeared on multiple venues detailing the exact day, Sept. 4, 2002, that he first briefed Democrats and Republicans including Nancy Pelosi (former speaker of the House) about this program, a program that they all deny knowing about. Rodriguez and others have stated that Democrat Sen. Jay Rockefeller and others urged them to do more to prevent the widely anticipated second wave of even more deadly attacks in the aftermath of 9/11 after castigating all of the intelligence agencies for not “connecting the dots” before the Twin Towers went down. 

We have now been given even greater insight into the program by Dr. James Mitchell, an Air Force psychologist who taught our pilots how to resist and defeat torture techniques, and was drafted to lead and conduct the extended interrogation program. On Fox News, probably the only venue that would give him a chance to tell “we the people” his side of the events, he described the actual techniques and why and how they provided actionable intelligence. 

As he clearly explained, after a waterboarding episode, the subject was told what information was being sought and that if they wanted to avoid another session, they should provide that information before the next interview. As Dr. Mitchell described, no subject was expected to provide intelligence in the middle of an actual session, but rather after having time to fret about their next interview. If the subject provided information between sessions, Feinstein and her liberal millennial staffers counted that as intelligence obtained during regular interviews, not as a result of the extended interrogation techniques.

Was that conclusion a somewhat excusable mistake based on not interviewing any of those who participated? I think not. Rather, it was a typical liberal contrivance: Decide what conclusion you want to reach (in this case the CiA and Bush and Cheney tortured people with no intelligence gained) and then pick the written documents that support your desired conclusion.

Dr. Mitchell also indicated that he has now received death threats since the report was released. Although he was identified by a pseudonym, his real name was leaked — amazing, a leak from our Congress. Where is the Valerie Plame outrage that landed Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff a jail sentence? Where is the special prosecutor to investigate the leak of this, and I am sure, other CIA operatives’ names?

Of course, I haven’t read the 600-page summary, much less the 6,700 page report. Only Senate staffer bureaucrats sucking from the public teat would have the time to write such a worthless document on the taxpayers’ dime rather than doing something constructive... like figure out a way to cut government waste and fraud and reduce the $18 trillion and growing debt.

These were not uniformed soldiers captured on the field of battle. They were terrorists who place no value on human life... ours or Muslims... who behead innocents and hide behind women and children. They don’t qualify for nor do they deserve rights afforded warriors according to the Geneva Conventions, not that our foes (Japan, Germany, North Korea, Vietnam) seem to have worried too much about those rules.

I have absolutely no problem with the advanced interrogation techniques that were used. In fact, I have no problem in outright torture of Islamofascist terrorists if it is strongly suspected that they have actionable intelligence of an imminent threat to American lives. Call me immoral, but I find no moral equivalence of what we have done to the beheadings and crucifixions carried out by the Islamofascists. Nor do I think waterboarding a few of these bad, bad guys incites better recruiting or harsher treatment of our captives by them. I can’t think of anything much worse than a reporter or relief worker being beheaded!

The more immediate the threat and the greater the number of lives, the more acceptable the action would be for me. And before those opposed to torture of any kind get their hackles up, just consider. If a terrorist was known to have smuggled a nuclear or dirty bomb into a major U.S. city with the potential to kill several million, maim countless others, and destroy our way of life by taking down our financial institutions and infrastructure, what techniques would you find unacceptable to prevent such a catastrophe? 

 Myerowitz is a resident of Columbia Falls.